Mourning
by alltherealice
Summary: After Buffy dies, Willow is sent out to tell Angel about her death, and to bring him back for the funeral. My take on what was going on in Willow's head at the time. AN:Despite what the genre's imply not mind numbingly angsty.


Spoilers for Season 5. One shot fic that somehow came into existence tonight with no prior planning. I hope everyone enjoys it.   
  
Disclaimer: All things Buffy belong to Joss Whedon. If I was Joss Whedon I would be a man, an adult, and a genius, none of which I am.   
  
-----  
  
Mourning  
  
'If there was one person on the entire planet who should not be dead, it was Buffy Summers. 'Not because she was a Slayer. Not because she was The Chosen One. But because she was Buffy Summers: Dawn's older sister, Xander and Willow's best friend, Spike's obsession, Angel's ex-girlfriend...' Willow paused in her train of thought as she looked around the lobby of the hotel room for the fourth time since she had arrived. 'Where is Angel anyway?' She asked herself, she was here, out of her way, interrupting her own grief so she could come and tell Angel in person that the love of his life was dead. And he didn't even have the courtesy to be there.   
  
The funeral was in two days. That's another reason why she was there. She had to come get Angel to come to Buffy's funeral. He deserved to be there after all. When she and Tara left the only people who were functioning were Anya and Giles, and Giles just barely. Anya was wrecked, but there was something keeping her going. Xander had been coming around though. Dawn and Spike were... catatonic.   
  
'Which isn't fair.' Willow thought angrily, 'Xander and I knew her better than any of them. We knew her longer than any of them too, sure Giles met her the same day, but I saw her in the hall first. We should be the ones unable to move due to grief. But nooo. Spike had a crush so he's exempt. Dawn's her "sister" after all. I'm just her best friend. I was just her best friend.' Willow sighed leaning back into the couch she had somehow ended up in; she wished Tara was there with her. But Tara had insisted upon Willow doing this alone. This being far too private to do in front of a stranger, Angel deserved to find out what had happened while in the company of people he trusted.  
  
She really wanted to leave, she wanted to get up and leave the hotel, just leave Angel a note or something. She would never actually do that, but it was what she wanted to do. It was what she was thinking about when Angel opened the front doors to the hotel saying something followed by him saying her name, and then figuring out what she was there for without Willow ever needing to open her mouth.  
  
"Yeah." Was all Willow said as Angel collapsed just inside the door, his head fell forward until his chin touched his chest and then only movements he made were those of pushing away the people who were trying to comfort him.   
  
Eventually all the people who entered with Angel drifted away. Two of them who Willow didn't recognize, four of them who Willow really didn't care to talk to at the moment. 'Well five actually,' she corrected herself as she drifted over to the steps Angel was still sitting on, wanting to glare at the vampire. To kick him, or scream at him, to make him realize he wasn't the only one who was hurting at the moment. But she didn't do any of that; she was Willow after all, Old Reliable Willow. Sweet Willow who looked after everyone before herself.   
  
'What a load of crap.' She thought to herself even as she sat down on the step next to Angel, and pulling him to her in a hug, the motion something she never saw herself doing outside of this situation. Angel didn't push her off, just fell into her, and started crying. Cordelia was crying in the background Willow noticed as she comforted Angel, quietly, unobtrusively, so completely unlike Cordelia. Out of character with the girl Willow had known her entire life without really ever getting to know her. The Cordelia she knew would never cry over someone she had tolerated at best. And if the Cordelia she knew ever did cry over someone she hadn't really liked, she would of made a big show about it, making a scene so the attention was focused once again on Queen C. But she wasn't doing that.   
  
"What happened?" The words startled Willow to the point that she jumped when Angel spoke. She didn't want to answer that, she had been there; she didn't want to relive it. If Angel needed to know so bad, he should have been there. But even as these truths revealed themselves to her, she was speaking, telling the story in reverse for some reason. Her body, the jump, the decision, the battle. On and on until she had told the entire story of Glory including the monks, the revelation about Dawn. Spike's crush, had been on the tip of her tongue, something to hurt Angel with for making her tell him what happened. But she hadn't. After she had told them what happened silence took over the room, silent save for the sound of a crying vampire. The occasional sniffle from Cordelia. The other noises just human noises. Shuffling feet, clothes rustling, people breathing.   
  
'Not so silent after all.'   
  
"We need to go. I need to go." Willow corrected, breaking the not so silence. "You don't have to leave now, or ever if you don't want. But I have to get back. The funeral is in two days."   
  
Soon Angel was standing in the same spot her had recently been sitting, a bag of clothes had been forced into his hand by Cordelia, as he prepared to depart with Willow. She and Wesley promising they would depart soon after in Angel's car.  
  
----  
  
Angel was in the backseat of the car. Spike's Desoto, the only car that would make the trip, Giles' not being up to it, and nobody else owned a car. The windows were clear; Tara had cleared them with a spell, promising an unnoticing Spike that she would repaint them when they got back. Angel hadn't even noticed that Tara was driving the car, much less that the car was Spike's. Willow had her face pressed against the passenger's window, one of her hands was gripping the side of the seat, while the other was extended across the seat, her and Tara's finger's intertwined.   
  
They arrived in Sunnydale two and a half hours later, in silence. The entire trip had been made that way, the radio hadn't been turned on because it couldn't be, when she and Tara had first started the car a loud noisy tape had started, scaring them both, and resulting in Willow some how frying the radio with magic as she ripped the tape out of the deck. She had yet to feel sorry for it, but Tara had commented later that they would replace it. Willow didn't want to replace it. She wanted to take the car and run over Spike with it, he would probably let her do it if she brought it up. He felt so guilty over not getting to the top of the tower that he would probably lay down in the middle of the road for her.   
  
They went to Giles' house. Nobody was willing to go to Buffy's. Dawn was still sitting on the couch when they arrived. Spike was collapsed against the wall leaning against a book shelf. Giles appeared to invite Angel in, before disappearing up into his room; the phone cord was stretched across the living room disappearing under his door. Xander wasn't there, and Anya was cooking.   
  
"Where's Xander?" Tara asked as Willow sat down on the couch to watch as Angel walked past Spike, acknowledging his fellow vampire with a growl that was not returned.   
  
"He said something about buying a casket. But the funeral homes aren't open yet, so I don't know where he is." Anya answered as she stirred a bowl full of something with one hand as the free hand followed the recipe in the cookbook with a fingertip.   
  
"What's Giles doing?" Tara asked, filling up the room with her voice. The only other sound to be heard was the muffled unintelligible sound of yelling coming from behind Giles door.   
  
"He's talking to the Watcher's Council." Anya replied helpfully.   
  
"He already talked to the Watcher's Council." Willow spoke up for the first time since entering.   
  
"Apparently there was more to say."   
  
----  
  
It was front page news in the paper. You would think another death in Sunnydale would be buried within the Obituaries. But Buffy's "suicide" was front page news.   
  
----  
  
Buffy Anne Summers  
  
1981 - 2001  
  
Beloved Sister  
  
Devoted Friend  
  
She Saved the World  
  
A Lot.  
  
That's what they decided on. Nobody gave the headstone a second look as people appeared en masse to get to the funeral. It didn't help when the world you wanted to hate, took you by complete surprise and showed they cared. It didn't help, but it was still possible.   
  
After the funeral there was no wake, no reception, nobody dropped off casseroles like they did in the movies. It was quiet. The Hellmouth though, was usually quiet. Xander and Anya went back to their apartment. Dawn went home with Giles. Spike went to his crypt and Angel went home to LA with Wesley and Cordelia. Willow and Tara, having no other place to go to, went to the Summers home. There was still a whole in Tara's dorm room, and since Willow was living with Tara when Buffy went back to live with Joyce, their dorm room had been re-released to another student.   
  
Tara went upstairs and retrieved blankets and pillows and they made a bed on the floor. All Willow wanted to do was go to sleep so she could avoid thinking about the things she would be expected to take care in the morning, but she couldn't. All she could do was stare at the coffee table leg by her head as she mentally hated everyone she could think of, when Tara pulled her over and told her to cry. Told her that it was finally her turn to mourn. 


End file.
